Call Centers, contact centers, and/or various multi-agent entities receive telephone calls. These telephone calls are processed by systems and are assigned to agents, who will then engage in communication with the calling party. The telephone call is often referred to as a ‘voice interaction’. The selection and assignment of the call, to an agent, from a population of many agents is referred to as ‘routing’. Routing can occur in many variations or via many algorithms, such as, but not limited to, a simple queue. Each call enters a queue, while agents are answering calls. After an agent finishes one call, or if the agent is ‘available’, he or she can be assigned the next call from the queue.
Routing can also be more complex, where the assignment of the voice interaction to an agent can involve other data elements. For example, if it is known that calling party is from Spain, then the system may be configured to only assign such a call to an agent which speaks Spanish. Routing may employ the use of computers or databases to perform data queries or execute other logic, such as identification f the language skills of each member of the agent pool, as previously noted. Data elements regarding the particular voice interaction may be captured, stored, and presented to the agent receiving the call, which in some cases occurs on the display of the agent's computer system. Systems and methods which perform routing are often expensive investments and may sometimes be categorized as computer telephony integration systems.
Communication to agents within call centers, contact centers, multi-agent entities has over the years began taking place over different communication mediums. These mediums include, but are not limited to, internet-based chat, e-mail, two-way video communication or conferencing, and SMS. The objectives of assigning each of these non-telephone calls or non-voice interactions to an agent, remains prevalent. Some routing systems or computer telephony integration systems have built-in capability to process, and propagate the data elements of, these non voice interactions. Others miry require implementation of additional tools, systems, software, or components, or in some cases replacement of the existing system.
Communication mediums such as, but not limited to, video conferencing, may be occasionally desired by either party in the aforementioned call centers, contact centers, or multi-agent entities. Various systems, methods, tools, or components may be available at both endpoints of the interaction (to the agent and to originating party), however routing must be performed to assign the originating party to the agent. It may be desirable to be able to perform such routing using the existing routing or computer telephony integration system, without incurring additional costs or requiring specific changes, upgrades, augmentation, modifications, additional components, additional systems, or additional methods. System acts (or users) may accept or allow for certain changes or, certain costs, to achieve desired functionality. It may also be desired to have agents and existing systems process phone calls and voice interactions, while also processing non-voice interactions and activities, within the same system, utilizing the same agent pool.
To help the reader, below is a table of commonly known acronyms explain
ACWAfter Call WorkANIAutomatic Number IdentificationCLICalling Line Identification (also written as CLID)CTIComputer Telephony IntegrationDBDatabaseDBMSDatabase Management SystemDS3Digital Subscriber III - a type digital carrier line that maycarry over 600 telephone voice channelsFirefoxA internet web browser made by Mozilla ™H.323A known communication protocolHTTPHyper Text Transfer ProtocolIPInternet ProtocolIP AddressInternet Protocol AddressISDNIntegrated Services Digital NetworkIVRInteractive Voice ResponseJMSJava Message ServiceLANLocal Area NetworkPBXPrivate Branch eXchangePOTSPlain Old Telephone SystemPSTNPublic Switched Telephone NetworkRAMRandom Access MemoryRESTRepresentantional State TransferRPCRemote Procedure CallSCCPSkinny Call Control ProtocolSIMPLESession Initiation Protocol for Instant Messaging andPresence Leveraging ExtensionsSIPSession Information ProtocolSMSShort Messaging ServiceSOAPSimple Object Access ProtocolSQLStructured Query LanguageSS7Signaling System Seven - a protocol used in telephonyTDMTime Division MultiplexingURLUniform Resource LocatorUUIUser to User InformationVDIVirtual Desktop InfrastructureVMVirtual MachineVMDKVirtual Machine DiskWANWide Area NetworkXMLeXtensible Markup LanguageXMPPeXtensible Messaging and Presence Protocol
In a video conferencing embodiment of the invention, the use of SIP is described as communication protocol often accepted in contact centers. In some instances. Contact center software and/or hardware systems may natively support video communication within the SIP protocol. However, not all contact center systems have capability to support SIP Video, even if they support SIP, and thus this video conferencing embodiment provides a viable alternate solution. Similarly, a contact center system may not support web-based chat. Some contact center systems only support voice (or telephone calls) as the communication medium. Allowing additional communication mediums, would require that the software or system would able to understand protocols and messages of the other system. Specifically, the system which receives the request or call on that communication medium would need to be able to process that medium. The agent also needs to be able to communicate on that medium. And an important aspect is that the routing system needs to monitor availability on the supported mediums. By this, if an agent is communicating on the Chat medium with a customer already, the routing system should know this, so that it does not assign another customer to that agent.
Contact centers might mix or blend the type of communication mediums an agent might encounter. An agent might be busy chatting with a customer, and that chat conversation, the agent is then considered available. The routing system may then assign the agent to a voice call. Some systems support routing and monitoring capabilities across multiple communication mediums like this, and others do not. Some systems may offer upgrades to expand the traditional voice telephony and add the chat functionality. Sometimes such non-voice communication mediums are considered a “multimedia”, which can entail adding server or software components, which are maybe costly. Communications may further be categorized as activities, wherein there e communication, such as voice or video, but also a customer service task, such as mailing a financial statement and cover letter. The aforementioned capabilities are sometimes sold by the original vendor of the contact center. This is much like additional features in a vehicle. Sometimes 3rd parties also try to produce these.
Hence, there is a need in the art method, system, and/or component to allow for the, routing of non-voice interactions and activities, such as but not limited to video conferencing, to occur on routing or computer telephony integration systems that do not presently support those non-voice interactions.